Santa visit 2010

See Jensenkids on Santa's List

Jensenkids made Santa's List "http://family.go.com/santas-list/video/206963-jeffreyjayjensen/" - Send your Picture to Santa and See Which List You've Made This Year

Something the kids enjoy doing at Halloween almost as much as trick-or-treating is going through the boxes of costumes I've acquired, (mostly from costumes my mom has made through the years, but also a few I've just collected), and trying everything on. It doesn't matter what size or gender, it is a crazed identity swap. They do so much giggling and goofing that I hope it ends up being a memory they look back on with fondness. Their real costumes this year ended up being Darth Vader-Will, Witch-Jessa, and a Ballerina Dragon-Emily. My mom made this dragon costume for Will when he was a toddler and Jessa wore it the year it fit her as well. This year is was Emily's turn. The tutu, (and pink tennis shoes), came as an attempt to distinguish her from a boy dragon. Even after I was sure it was pretty darn obvious that this was a little GIRL dragon, one poor, thoughtless man could not put the pieces together. I'm curious what he must've thought that tutu was all about then? Ahh well. . . Our pumpkins this year were kindof a little of this and a little of that. We planted pumpkins in our garden, like we do every year, but because our summer was super ultra wet, it seemed the garden was in almost a constant state of flooding. That took a toll on our pumpkins and we ended up with really only one "good" one. The rest we picked up at the Farmer's Market one Saturday. Will wanted Dad to carve a scared face on his. Jessa wanted to do her own face with a marker. When I saw her end end result I was really suprised. For being 4 years old, I thought she did awesome! Emily was content to have Dad draw a smiley face on hers. The photo of the kids sitting next to the intricately carved face on a pumpkin is the artistic work of my very talented father-in-law.

Nuh-uh!

I have virtually ZERO time for anything else, since I began my four BYU-I classes online, but after so many fun things in such a short amount of time, I had to take 2 seconds to share.

Wednesday was a gorgeous day! Will, Jessa, and cuz Brady went outside to play leaving a sobbing 2 yr. old little sister in their wake. The facts that a) I had to work on school b) it was a beautiful day and there won't be too many of those left for awhile and c) I could watch the kids' every move from my french doors and quickly get up to holler if necessary, all led me to give in to Emily's mournful cries to be permitted to join the outside merriment. It did my heart good to see them all having so much fun together enjoying being outdoors doing the running and screaming and laughing thing. After probably an hour and a half it was time to come in for dinner and seriously, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN!!! Emily came in with a mosquito bite under her eye. The pictures below will show you what that has become. :( Because it has gotten progressively more swollen and hideous, I made a call to the clinic today to ask if I needed to bring her in. The girls were in the bathtub with the door open, while I was 10 steps away at my NOT-cordless phone. All seemed well as I was being given instructions for Em and making an appointment for her to be seen, when Jessa began to shriek. "Mom! Mom! Come here, quick!" I was attached to the phone with the nurse and I could both hear and see both of my girls, so I knew no one was dying. I told her she'd have to hold on while I continued listening to the nurse. I think it was when I saw them trying to scramble to get OUT of the tub that it hit me, -there is a very good probability that someone pooped in that tub. That has happened once before. Will was about 4 weeks old and it was infant poop. It escaped his small body and permeated the water like a green fog. I asked Jessa, "Did Emily poop in there?" She responded without hesitation, "YES!". I ended the phone call and entered the bathroom to assess the damage. I was prepared for grossness. I was relieved to see one small marshmallow sized solid chunk floating around. I reached across the tub to grab a container to scoop it out with when the horror unfolded. There tucked along the edge and NOT floating was the mother load! Since it refused to jump out and put itself in the toilet, I was nominated for the job. While unpleasant to the nth, I can successfully report, 'mission accomplished'. Oh, but the cherry came when Emily then peed on the floor while she waited for me to get things cleaned up. Yes. Yes she did. (Sigh) On the plus side, Jessa is no longer having complete meltdowns about having to go to school! (Gotta look on the bright side, right? :) ) Let me just close by telling you that in spite of the ick, the work, the stress, the worry, the exhaustion, I would not trade my calling as a mom for anything else you could hand me. Even during POOP-IN-TUB mornings.

Turning Two!

Emily turned 2 on Aug. 27th. There was something magic about that day. It was as if she instantly grew up. BEFORE her birthday when she would answer in the affirmative, it came out, "aah" EVERY time, but ON her birthday she began answering, "Yah". I might not have been so surprised if we had been working with her to say the word right, but we hadn't! Ah, birthday magic! Not only that, but, she also hit another milestone on that day. One of her presents was a pretty pink little potty seat, so that we could begin the dreaded potty training. She had potty success THAT evening shortly after opening it up!! Where did my baby go? :) We celebrated on Friday with just our little family. Then on Sunday evening, we had all of Jeff's family over for dinner and cake 'n ice cream. It was very nice.

Emily:

☺ Loves animals and even hangs out her tongue like a puppy to catch the wind when we cruise around on the golf cart (hehe)

☺ Has strong opinions about what she wants to wear and changes her clothes at least once a day

☺ Loves pictures of temples and of Jesus

☺ Thinks Playdoh is must on her list of daily activities (Today, I found a wet and slimey chunk of yellow playdoh on the dining room floor and was pretty certain it had spent some time in her mouth. My suspicion was confirmed when she pointed to it, made a crinkled up face and said, "Sour.")

☺ Has replaced biting with pinching and scratching as her defense of choice

☺ Knows all her ABC's until the letter 'S' when she stops singing ABC's and inserts the first line of "Itsy Bitsy Spider"

☺ Likes to buckle her own highchair seat buckle and her own shopping cart buckle

☺ Has fun playing fairy school with her sister and cousins

☺ Brightens our home and our family with her strong and beautiful personality

Still Burning!!

The garden is in full harvest right now. I both LOVE it and DREAD it! It's exciting to see what our time and effort and God's good grace yields us. It's also overwhelming to have to deal with such large quantities in the short span of a couple of days. There is just no way my family is gonna be eating all of those tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, corn . . . before it spoils, so , (sigh) the only alternative is preserve, right? Yesterday was jalapeno pepper day. In years past we've planted only 1 or 2 plants that we've used in our salsa. Jeff decided,(for reasons unknown to me), to plant 5 plants this year!! I DO have a weakness for breaded, deep fried, cream cheese stuffed jalapenos, but I've never made them at home and even then, we have WAY more peppers than we could possibly eat! I decided to freeze them. Yesterday afternoon, I assembled supplies. Knife, cutting board, seed scooper, and freezer bags. No gloves. I didn't have any and honestly, didn't think I 'd really need them anyway, after all, I EAT them without pain and suffering. All was going well, *wink, wink* , until I needed to blow my nose. I am a two tissue nose blower. No sense messin' around getting all snotty and nasty with one tissue and then havin' to clean yourself all up with another. Start with two - avoid the mess. :) Not a minute after I had blown my nose, my face began to burn! Through TWO tissues!! I severely underestimated the potency of the jalapeno!! That's also when I noticed my fingers were on FIRE! Everything continued to burn EVEN after I washed my hands 3 times. Hours later, I bathed 3 children and STILL everything was burning! I went to bed and woke up this morning to discover, my face and fingers were still burning!! LESSON LEARNED!!!

My Daughter- Nanny McPhee

Jeff has temporarily bestowed a new nickname upon our baby. NANNY MCPHEE!! How jealous are YOU? Poor girlie. It came about like this: Emily doesn't spend as much time outside as Will and Jessa do. She needs more supervision and as much as I'd like to throw responsibilities to the wind and spend all day long playing- that just can't happen. So. . . HOW she ends up with OVER 30 MOSQUITO BITES while the other kiddos sport, I dunno, maybe 2, baffles me! And THEN, she scratches and scratches and scratches them until she scratches her skin right off! Then they swell and get infected and she scratches until they bleed. Ugh! Whenever I catch her scratching and tell her to stop, she says, "I wub, mom. I wub." Telling me that she's NOT scratching, just rubbing. :) I've got my Mederma ready and waiting for any scarring-and I'm sure there'll be some. In the mean time, let's pray for a frost. That should help. I love you, dear little Nanny McPhee! (Yes, I know that's a mighty big bandaid on her face, but 1.) We weren't going anywhere public and 2.) It covered two bites that she couldn't leave alone in one lovely covering!)

Painful

At 7:30 this morning, the black hole in my stomach and the huge lump in my throat were unbearable. Being ripped apart from my sister, brother, and niece as they drove down my driveway and left for home, actually hurt. We got to spent 2 weeks together and it is splendid how many memories can be made in a short 14 days. My house now feels empty and lonely. I hate it. I SO very much want to be with them forever. Thankfully about 15 minutes after they left, Adri called me from her cell phone to see how I was doing. I felt relieved to be connected again, but it only took seconds before I was a blubbering, sobbing baby. I told her how it felt weird to be without them and how I couldn't stop replaying all the stuff we had done together over in my mind and how cut off and removed I was feeling. Thankfully, by the end of our conversation, the pain of separation wasn't consuming me anymore. I think I'll be okay. :) I think one reason it's so hard is because I know I probably won't get to see them for another whole year. I'm selfish I guess. I want more than that.


When Adri came out last summer she stayed for 5 weeks! Oh, the fun! When she left, she gave me a card and I gave her a card. Inside of those cards, we had each recalled the specific highlights of our time spent together. (kindof funny that we BOTH did that :) ) So, last night she and I agreed that we needed to write up the 2010 highlights. It's a good one and as soon as she sends me a copy of the list we compiled, I'll add it to this post. For now, some pictures of the last two weeks.

Kid-isms

**When Will came home from school and I asked him what happened at school that day, he responded that their class had had a visit from an author who wrote a book about a Christmas Train. Then he said, "It's about a real story that really happened a long, long, long, time ago - before the dinosaurs were even invented!"

**Jessa and I were looking at one of the children's picture books of the Book of Mormon when she pointed at a man with dark hair and a dark beard holding onto the rod of iron from Lehi's dream. She said, "I know who THAT is. That's Jesus. . . " Thinking she was done, I told her, no, that wasn't Jesus. She said, "I know. It's Jesus's. . . Apossible!"

**Jessa was lying on the floor while Jeff and I were looking on the computer at some banking stuff when out of nowhere she says, "I wish I would die today." Jeff and I looked at each other. What was going through her little head that made her say such a thing? Jeff asked her, "Why do you wanna die today?" She explained, "So I don't have to die anymore." Did she wanna get it over with? After taking a second to try to process her train of thought I said, "But if you die today, you'll miss your birthday on Sunday." She thought for a second then said, "I'll just ask Jesus to take me to my birthday."

Hee-Hoo bird

For as long as I can remember, I have been tormented by a the call of the phantom:

"Hee-Hoo bird"

From Idaho to Wisconsin I've heard this bird tease: "Hee-hoo. . . Hee-hoo. . . Hee-hoo" and I have always wondered what kind of silly bird made such a ridiculous sound. Well, . . . a couple of nights ago my family and I were at the hardware store. We were headed to the checkout when my children spied a tiered circular bin full of stuffed animals. They were drawn by unseen forces to begin inspecting them. All the sudden, I started hearing birds songs coming from the bin. Turns out they were toy birds that when squeezed made the corresponding bird call. And, THEN, I heard IT! "Hee- hoo. . . hee-hoo. . . " I'm sure my gasp was heard clear across the store when I lunged toward the bin of birds and cried, "What bird just made that noise!!! It seemed like we must've squeezed every bird in that bin before Jessa finally squeezed a black and white little birdie that made the familiar sound. She was very pleased to have been the one to find it and handed it to me. I felt like I had just won a contest. I scanned the tag looking for its name. In tiny letters at the bottom of the tag it read, "Black-capped Chickadee". So there ya go. Funny thing is, I'm still calling it the "Hee-hoo bird".

Stitches

Will was standing on top of the "island" in our kitchen reaching for a paper on a ledge. The table he was standing on slid out from behind his outstretched body and he collided with the the sharp wooden edge of a pantry door. He immediately began to scream in panic and pain and exclaimed, "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding! I don't wanna die!" He WAS bleeding ALOT!! Without even looking to see where he was bleeding from, (mostly because I wasn't sure I wanted to know), I picked him up and rushed him to sit in the bathtub with a towel to his head while I found dad. Jeff came running in and told me to call his sister who is also a First Responder for Emergency Calls in our area. She said she'd be right over and while we waited for her, Jeff removed the towel to see where the blood was coming from. Will had a gaping wide hole right between his eyes! We knew he was going to need stitches. Our kitchen looked like somebody had been shot. Tracy came with her F. R. bag and agreed that we needed to take him to the ER. We took a moment for Jeff to give Will a blessing then I called Amy to watch the girls, found my purse and was ready to go. Jeff couldn't find his wallet. We quickly looked all over the places we thought it could be, but didn't find it! Jeff thought he maybe lost it in the woods while he was cutting wood. Nice, stress on TOP of stress! Amy came and got the girls, and Will, Jeff, Tracy, (the experienced emergency handler), and I all hurried to the van to head out. Will sobbed off and on the whole ride there. When nobody spoke to him he was quiet. When anybody tried to talk to him he got upset. After we registered at the front desk, an ER nurse took Will and Jeff back to a room and Tracy and I waited. For over an hour. Finally, when I decided that it had been plenty long enough, I went up to the desk and asked if I could go back to check on my son. She said I could. I don't think I'd taken more than five steps when Jeff came walking out carrying Will. Apparently, a little over an hour gets you 9 lovely stitches. When we got home, Jeff found his wallet under a blanket on our bed- hooray-. Will stayed home from school the rest of the week and the stitches came out 5 days later. NOT FUN! I do not care to ever have to do that again. Family, please keep all your bones in one piece and your blood on the INSIDE, thank you.

Kites with Grandpa

Grandpa is always coming up with fun things to do with the grandkids. He picked up some kites and one Saturday he came over to fly them. MAN was it WINDY!

Easter

We invited all the cousins over to our house to color eggs this year. They always have fun when they get together.

Easter Sunday was also Jeff's birthday AND General Conference this year! Busy day! The Easter Bunny came to our house and then later that day, Grandma Gene organized an egg hunt for the kids and I enjoyed watching their excitement as they ran around discovering colorful plastic, candy-filled eggs. They were told there were 10 eggs for each child and it was neat to watch them help each other, (after they'd found all of their own first, of course :) )

Will's Birthday

Will is 6! Honestly, time goes so quickly. We went to The Golden Corral for his special dinner and he delighted in eating swirl ice cream with gummi bears on it for dessert! His dad seemed to think it would be a great idea to get him an air-soft rifle, so he and dad have had some fun doing that. He also likes the Bakugan cartoon, (which he gets to watch maybe once in a month), and has begun collecting the cards and the balls. He got some new balls for his birthday along with a guitar, some Mighty Beans and some cool new art supplies.

Will is tall for his age and we suspect he'll hit at least 6'2''. He loves to learn and has AMAZED me with how quickly he is learning to read. He's reading everything now and really surprises me. I'm quite a proud momma!☺ He is a careful and cautious kid and worries more than you'd guess. A few times now when our family has been out and Dad has gone in somewhere by himself, (to make the errand quicker), Will will start to get nervous and tell me he's really worried about Dad and wants to go check on him. This apple didn't fall far from the tree. I can remember being the same way and being sure my parents were dead if they weren't back by the time I thought they should be from wherever it was they were.

He has a hard time waking up for school, but for some reason can wake up even earlier on no-school days to play the Wii. I can already imagine the mornings when I will have to help him wake for early morning seminary.

When he sets his mind to something, he is a very task and goal-oriented boy. Each child in his Kindergarten class was asked to create a trap to try and catch the Leprechaun that "visits" school this time of year. That consumed Will's thoughts and talk until it was completed. Now, it's unlocking new races, bikes, and characters for the Mario-Kart game. I hope that drive will propel him to accomplishing great things as he grows.

It's strange to think of how this strong, smart little boy used to be such a small, helpless little peanut. I'm thankful to have him in our family. He teaches me as much as I teach him. I love him forever.